A professional scout helped as well. One day, as the scout was hitting fungoes, he looked down and grabbed a brown and battered ball.

“He said, ‘Man, since you guys didn't make it to Omaha last year and had a disappointing season, we can't even get brand new baseballs,' “ the Owls sophomore third baseman said Wednesday. “He was talking to coach (Mike) Taylor, who said, ‘Hell yeah, it was a disappointment — we're supposed to make it to Omaha every year.'”

So it is at Rice.

Step inside the baseball offices, where success is on display everywhere. The 2009 Conference USA championship trophy is resting on a coffee table. Across the room, flanked by trophies celebrating the accomplishment of reaching Omaha, the site of the College World Series, is the 2003 national championship trophy.

“Once you're here a couple of weeks, you realize the culture is we're trying to win a national championship, and there's no question about it,” senior catcher Diego Seastrunk said.

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Although the area is already cluttered, Wayne Graham insists there is room for more, perhaps as the result of this postseason, which begins this weekend with regional play in Austin on Friday against Louisiana-Lafayette (37-20).

“We always expect to reach Omaha, and if you don't, your chances are remote,” Graham said. “Some people break through once in a while, just accidentally. But you have to be committed to that idea.”

It is, as Rendon insisted, “serious,” but mainly because of the program's expectations. The Owls are also in a different position, maybe an underdog this season, stuck in the same regional as the No. 2 national seed.

“We just take it as another game,” Rendon said. “We shouldn't put too much pressure on ourselves, like, ‘Oh, we have to go to Texas.' It's just Texas. We see them every year.

“We know what they have, and we're pretty comfortable when we play them.”